"Život je jen náhoda."

Translation: Life is but a chance.

[Tibro3]

"A" chance? As in, "Life is only a chance (to live)"?

[Petr486191]

Chance as in a random, unpredictable phenomenon.

[Tibro3]

Life is chance. Life is only chance. Why the singularity of "a" chance? I would never normally say such a thing as a native speaker.

[Petr486191]

It might not be ideal as written in English. The meaning is clear from the Czech sentence, though, where it's also a pretty common phrase (probably from the popular song with the same name).

[endless_sleeper]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMCk2Ri0DmQ ;)

[Tibro3]

The existence of a Czech song doesn't make the English translation sound any better to me. However pleasant and lovely the original. Can someone please make it acceptable with "a".

[Tibro3]

without

[walkinwolk]

I wrote “Life is just chance” and it was still wrong.Maybe if I used “but” it would have been OK, but I always use either “only” or “just” as a translation for “jen” in these Czech modules.

[AgnusOinas]

According to ngrams, "...is only chance" is used, so I'm adding it as a possible translation. Also, it makes sense to me, it's less ambiguous than "a chance" which can also mean "opportunity" (and that's not what the Czech sentence means).